Can anyone point me in the direction if a decent training program for xc and marathon racing.

Would be interested in upperbody training as well as my core and arms really felt it after my first outing. Have done most of my miles on my road bike but that doesn’t seem to have done me much good. Any tips suggestions welcome!

This quote is from Tour de France winner Fausto Coppi. When asked for the three most important tips he could give to someone wanting to improve in cycling, his reply was, “Ride the bike, ride the bike, ride the bike!”

buy a road bike and ride it lots </close thread>

Some excellent core strength workouts here:
http://www.styrkeprogrammet.se/fardiga-program/

Text in Swedish but each exercise has a film showing you the way to do it.

Start with Bålstabilitetspasset – nivå 2, Core Stability level 2 and do that twice a week for 4 weeks then move to level 3.

Ride fast intervals on the MTB for technique and strength

In my extremely humble opinion based on only my own experience, the following generalisations are true:
A) Ride lots.
B) Push yourself. Faster along that straight, bigger gear up that hill.
C) Record everything you do- it will prove you are making progress.
D) Don’t be afraid to rest. You can work out much harder when properly rested.
E) Ride on the road. That marvellous invention know as gears means your can always push harder on the road. Steady, consistent measured efforts are so much easier to implement on the road as are hard fast intervals. Where as off road it’s ride a bit, coast a bit, power a bit, fall off a bit etc etc- far too inconsistent.
F) The most important one for me and probably the most controversial- do the miles on your race bike or one with identical geometry. If you train on a road bike, the exact muscle groups you utilise on your Mtb will not be as conditioned as if you’d used the ‘same’ bike.

Please take with liberal helping of salt- just my own experience.

read joe friel’s book.
ride your mtb on the road.
ride everywhere.

It’s not just about riding your bike loads, although that will obviously help.

XC racing will involve loads of accelerations so you will also need to factor in sprint/ recovery HIIT too. Plenty of info online about this.

Figure out you weaknesses and work hard on them as well as maintaining your strengths.

Edit: Recommend Joe Friel too. It will give you a good understanding of why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Eat right too, you can’t out train a poor diet.

it’s 50/50 training/nutrition both as important as each other.

The answer is basically no.

There is a complete lack of free of charge generalised training programmes for Xc/marathon racing.

On a positive note there is no shortage of advice and experience out there.

DO NOT just ride, if you want the most out of your training time.

A periodised plan with endurance rides, intervals etc will be most effective.

Thanks for the advice people.
There used to be something online by the CRC marthon series but its disapeared.

The advice to just ride doesn’t work for me. I did almost 5k miles last year and can crack out 70 solo road miles at a touch under 18 mph average so for me its transferring that training to the MTB and building the muscles that don’t get used on the road bike.

Nutrition is something I have to get on board with so thanks for re-enforcing what I know but ignore!

Cheers people

Most of the fast guys I know do something like this (simplified):

In a week:
1x really long mtb ride, mostly for fun.
1-2x tempo/L3 2ish hour ride
2-3x hard interval/race simulation rides. Often intervals on the turbo, sometimes chain gang on the road or an eveing XC race.

You might want to start with one of each and then attempt to work your way up.

That will be interspersed with foam roller/core work, skills practice etc. They might do the odd road ride (more during the winter when the trails are really bad), but it’s not a salient feature of their training. Fast mountain bikers rider their mountain bikes the most – specificity innit.

Whilst I ride lots with mates, and sometimes pretty quick, every time I do a shorter XCO race (1.5 hours) it strikes me that the main thing I am missing in training is race simulations. Find a short local circuit that matches the sort of races you do and treat it like a race with energy drink, gels, stashed bottles and go flat out for a race duration.

Ride with other fast people. You’ll never push as hard on your own

Thanks for the advice people.
There used to be something online by the CRC marthon series but its disapeared.

The advice to just ride doesn’t work for me. I did almost 5k miles last year and can crack out 70 solo road miles at a touch under 18 mph average so for me its transferring that training to the MTB and building the muscles that don’t get used on the road bike.

Nutrition is something I have to get on board with so thanks for re-enforcing what I know but ignore!

Cheers people

If you’re that fast then seriously, “just riding” is working, I reckon you just need to do the exact same routine but on your Mtb.

I was the opposite, spent all last summer training on my Mtb churning out 17-19mph averages over 20-45 miles. Even did 61 miles end-end-end on Salisbury Plain at 15mph average.
Then bought a road bike and couldn’t get over 16mph average in the same training routes- subtly different muscle groups.

I wrote a bit about the training i did for a 24hr solo:

Physical prep followed a tried and tested Chris Eatough training plan. Basically this follow the Joe Friel principles of periodisation and training pyramids – i.e. 12 weeks broken down into 3 blocks of four weeks gradually building in intensity and volume, with each fourth week being a rest week to allow the body to recover before the next block. Each week consists of varying amounts of interval training (to build top end and ability to recover from short efforts), longer tempos (to build power and endurance), and finally longer rides at the weekend (to stand a chance of being able to ride for a full day). All this sound a bit of a burden, and I averaged about 10-12 hrs/week which is a commitment, but in truth I really enjoyed it as most of the 12 weeks were lovely sunny weather and I was able to mix up road and mountain biking with different people and in different locations. Over about 4 months I lost a stone and a half of winter wobble too – just through lots of miles and cutting out the crap. I tried to avoid getting stuck in the rut of always training on my own which sucks the joy out of cycling in my experience. Riding with the local road club and sometimes with better mountain bike riders gave me a nice idea of how my riding was progressing. All training was done simply on time and perceived effort, no messing about with heart rate monitors or power taps, just intuition and a good feel for lactate threshold and what is a hard effort. Riding in new places and doing recovery rides that finish with a Gower beach and a swim with my girlfriend Cat worked well too.

I wrote a bit about the training i did for a 24hr solo:

That was just to get in the bit about finishing rides on the beach you lucky sod wasn’t it? 😀

When I was doing well at it I rode my bike lots, half mountain bike half road bike. I did interval training on the bike or brick training (running and intervals on the bike mixed up) once a week when I was taking it way too seriously.

I went climbing twice a week too.

I did quite a lot of running too, though rarely for more than 40 minutes and at quite low intensity.

We won enough stuff like that. I never followed a training plan.

Add a bit of cross training into the mix, swimming is good, I also do a bit of paddle boarding now and again – good workout for your core & upper body and its fun rather than repetitive gym exercises which I loathe.

Typical week.
4 steady paced 25-30mile rides (to work)
4 hard 25-30mile mile rides near threshold (back home)
1 4-5hour steady paced road or mtb ride
1 day of playing on the 4x bike at bmx tracks or trail centre on the fs or more usually a race
1 rest day (but I’ll probably go for a trundle on the ss.
Can’t be arsed having a ‘plan’ because I’ll get bored and stop bothering. I’ve raced 20 odd times this season in road races,crits,xc,enduro and 4x and more often than not ended up on or near the podium (much to my and everyone else’s surprise) for the first time in 25 years of riding!!!
Going to race cx all winter and might look at actually ‘training’ after crimbo as I intend on getting my arse handed to me at all the nationals next year.
I ride my bike cos I enjoy it,as a side product of this I’ve ended up being quite quick so I go racing. Not the other way round!!!!!